Direct Exam: John Arnold

He was a homicide detective for 29 years and has now worked as the Chief Investigator for the Warren Co. coroner's office for 4 years. "33 yrs is a long time, I've seen a lot of death." he said.

As a coroner's investigator, he usually inspects violent deaths, suspicious deaths, drug overdoses and suicides and will either go to the scene where the body is, or go to the hospital.   If the death appeared to be a natural death, he'd write a brief report and release the body to the family. If not, he would continue to investigate.   His job is to deal with the body, and if he can see the scene, it helps his investigation. He's also investigated death scenes that weren't homicides. He works with Russell Uptegrove, the coroner, to determine if an autopsy will be done. Some investigations reveal that something that appeared suspicious turned out to be nothing and the body is released without an autopsy.   He's had training for death scene investigations and also teaches a 5-day course for a training academy about death scenes. They have something called a scenario house for investigator training.

On Aug. 11, 2008, he responded to the hospital where Sarah's body was. He was told that a 24-year-old woman was taken to Bethesda Arrow Springs for an apparent drowning. He knew Sarah had been found in a bathtub unresponsive. She was lying on a carpeted floor, the carpet was dry and the scene was dry. She was pronounced dead at the hospital before he was called so all he knew was that an apparently healthy 24-year-old woman had died.

He only made an external observation at that time, and noticed that her hair was damp, her body was dry and there were no unusual signs of trauma. There was no indication that she'd been submerged in water such as pruning to her fingers. He would have expected to see pruning if she'd been in water very long. He has some training about pruning and it usually appears after about 20 to 30 minutes in the water.   He bagged Sarah's hands after making his external observations because forensic evidence can be found under the nails. Paper bags are used so moisture doesn't damage any evidence. Then he went to speak with Ryan.

He found Ryan and his mother in the chapel room at the hospital. He asked Ryan how long they were married and Ryan said since April. He asked Ryan who was in the residence and Ryan replied, just the two of them. He asked what kind of house it was and Ryan said it was a standard 2-story house. Ryan went on to tell him that it was about 10 p.m., he was watching the Bengals game and Sarah went upstairs to take a bath.   He was afraid she might fall asleep in the tub so about a half hour later, he went upstairs to check on her.   Burke said the falling asleep in the tub comment seemed odd to him because he hadn't asked about that.

Ryan told him that he found her face down in the water in the bathtub. He pulled Sarah out and pulled the drain plug and began performing CPR. He said he was certified in CPR some time ago. He noticed Sarah's cell phone sitting on the vanity and called 911. There was pink liquid coming out of her nose. It took 3 or 4 minutes before paramedics got there. He asked Ryan why he pulled her out of the tub and Ryan said the 911 dispatcher told him to get her out of the tub.   Burke was confused by the story, so he asked Ryan if he pulled Sarah out before or during the 911 call, and Ryan said during.   Burke asked Ryan about what he had said about Sarah falling asleep in the tub. Ryan then told him she had never fallen asleep in the tub before, but that she did fall asleep often.

Burke said he has seen people pulled from tubs before and it's difficult to do. "The tub is a container and the person is in a container. The term "dead weight" is used for a reason." During the time that Burke talked to Ryan, he didn't see any external injuries on Ryan but he was very upset so Burke decided to talk with him again at a later time.

In regards to Sarah, he said autopsies are normally done after a drowning because external injuries are not always visible and it takes time for injuries to show up. If there are injuries in a drowning in a standing body of water, they are suspicious. He said not all accused suspects have defensive wounds if they committed an assault, and he saw no injuries like that on Ryan or Sarah, but that was not significant because he has investigated thousands of deaths and "every case is different".

Burke spoke to the EMS team briefly to see what observations they had made, but didn't interview any of them. He reviewed an EMT report;   it wasn’t a completed copy but it was all that was available at the time.

The Widmer house was not, at that time, deemed a "crime scene. It was a suspicious death, but he didn't have any evidence that a crime had been committed so he didn’t direct Hamilton Twp. police to treat the house as a crime scene. He has the authority to do that.

Arnold asked Burke if he returned to the death scene more than once and Burke replied he was at the house during the execution of the search warrant a few days after Sarah died. He knew police obtained a search warrant the night of Sarah's death and they collected some evidence and took photos.

Burke said a victim should never be moved until it has been photographed and measured but there are exceptions. "There is no grayer area than death investigation", he said, and sometimes you have to violate the "golden rule" of investigation--not to touch to find out if something is wet or not, or move anything until it's been photographed. Touching the carpet to test for wetness was an appropriate deviation from the golden rule.  

No further questions.

Cross Exam : Jay Clark

Burke said he spoke with a paramedic the night of Sarah's death and was given the run sheet at the hospital. He has spoken with most of them before and didn't show them any identification because he would expect them to know him. Clark showed him the run sheet and he identified it as the one for Sarah Widmer. He was wearing his official Warren Co. coroner investigator shirt that night when he received the run sheet.

Clark asked if Burke taught his students to record interviews and Burke asked if he meant taking notes or making a recording. Clark clarified his question and Burke agreed that photography is one way to document the crime scene. Burke said questions and answers can also be recorded by an audio recorder or by taking notes. He took notes, and all he knew was based on his notes, his memory and the incomplete report that he received that night. He suspected drowning to be a reasonable cause of death and didn't ask the medics about the pink frothy fluid but he took notes when he interviewed the EMS workers and three squad members told him that Sarah was bleeding from the vaginal area during chest compressions. He took notes on this and later completed a report which he identified when Clark showed it to him.

He said he was with Lt. Braley and Officer Short at the Widmer house when the search warrant was executed. Clark then placed a photo of the bedroom/bath entry on the screen but Burke said that was not how it looked two days later when he was there.

He was with Coroner Uptegrove at the time of Sarah's autopsy and said that he and Uptegrove have worked on several cases together. Prior to the autopsy, he had only spoken to Ryan and Ryan's mother. He didn't speak to any of Sarah's family members but spoke briefly to Sarah's mother at the hospital, but nothing in depth.

Clark asked that if he didn't record the conversation, there was no way to know if he made a mistake, correct? Burke replied yes, he has "absolutely" made mistakes in the past in his note taking.

Burke said he has received training, along with other investigators, on how to appear in court and present himself when he testifies during a trial; how to talk directly to the jury and make eye contact with them.

Clark asked him if he's handled hundreds of thousands of cases and Burke replied, "I'm not that old." Clark apologized and said he meant quite a lot and Burke agreed. He said in all his death investigations where he has spoken to family members, reactions are always different. Clark asked, "Everyone reacts to the death of a loved one differently so no one can know how they would react until it happens" and Burke agreed. "Every case is different?" Clark asked. Burke replied "Yes".   "There is no right or wrong way to react?” Burke said, "That's a true statement."

There was some confusion in Burke's report, where he said that Ryan pulled Sarah out of the tub before draining it. Clark asked if this meant all the way out or part of the way out and Burke said he assumed it meant all the way out but admitted he wasn’t sure what Ryan meant about when or how Ryan got Sarah out of the tub. Clark asked if someone who experienced the traumatic loss of a loved one could mix up what happened and when and in what order. Burke agreed it could be the effect of the stress and the shock.

Burke said he is the one who took Sarah's body to the morgue and put her in a body bag. From the hospital he took her to the Coroner's office in Dayton because they don't have the full facilities to do autopsies in Warren County. A photo of Sarah's body was placed on the screen. Her body was on a metal table and she was covered in a hospital gown. She still had the endotracheal tube in her mouth and a hospital bracelet on her arm. Marks from the bag valve mask were still visible on her face.

Burke said he didn't view pruning on Sarah, but he didn't know how long she had been out of the water before he arrived at the hospital and saw her. He only knew that she had been in the water for 20 to 30 minutes according to Ryan. He didn't see water on her body at the hospital, but she had been covered with a sheet by the EMS workers before they took her to the hospital. When pruning occurs, it can depend on many factors; water temperature, time in the water and other variables which he didn't

know.

Burke said he was not in charge of the investigation. Det. Braley was in charge. He spoke to Braley shortly after he was dispatched and again early the next morning. The scene was secured by Braley at some point while he [Burke] was at the hospital. They went back a few days later after securing the search warrant to investigate further. Burke said victims of strangulation try to remove the attacker's hands and you often see scratches on the attacker but as a veteran cop, he looked at Ryan's hands and didn't see any marks or scratches. EMS workers also told him that Ryan didn't have any marks on him when they were at the house.

Burke said the crime scene should be treated as if it's the one and only time to investigate because there is always the possibility for contamination.   Photos taken that night showed Sarah's wedding rings on the sink but when investigators came back a few days later, the rings were gone. Burke agreed a crime scene should be secured so no evidence is damaged or lost but the house wasn't considered a crime scene at that point, but a death scene. When asked why carpet samples were collected then, he replied that carpet samples might be collected in a death investigation.

When asked about the dry bathroom, he said he didn't know about humidity, air flow, air temperature or other environmental factors that could have accounted for what happened to the water, like air conditioners, fans, etc. Braley did not give that information to him either.

Clark then asked about the class he teaches and Burke said the class is about sudden unexplained death but he doesn't teach that particular subject, it’s part of the curriculum. Students are taught about negative autopsies, which means the coroner can't determine the cause of death. There are more tests that should be done then to determine the cause of death but what type depends on the case. Clark then asked if he's had negative autopsies as part of an investigation and Burke replied that they are common in sudden instant death syndrome or among young people without an obvious illness. He also agreed that 1 to 2 percent of cases in busy morgues, have negative autopsies and healthy young adults are among those cases. He also teaches that close attention should be paid to bruising and abrasions on a victim, and they could show up after death.

Burke said that the coroner's autopsy of Sarah, ruled the cause of death as drowning, but the question was, what was the explanation for her drowning? Clark then asked what makes a suspicious death a crime scene?   Burke replied that suspicions were based on everything that was learned at that point. Defensive wounds could turn it into a crime or they would find skin or DNA under the victim's nails. He didn't notice any retinal hemorrhage or petechiae [burst blood vessels] in Sarah's eyes that night. It's commonly seen in the white of the eye and can be the result of strangulation or chest compressions.

Clark asked if you can age a bruise on a deceased person and Burke replied that it would be impossible for him to determine the age of a bruise but a trained pathologist could. He tells officers to not try to determine a bruise's age, but let the pathologist do it.

A photo is posted of Sarah's torso, with her hand and wrist bagged. Burke observed that she had nice nails that were well manicured but he wasn't sure if it was called a French Manicure. There was no damage to them and no chips. All nails were intact.

Burke said Sarah didn't have any injuries consistent with hitting the faucet in the bathtub. He agreed the environment must be considered when investigating a drowning and a moving body of water can cause the body to drift into solid objects, causing postmortem injuries. A stable body of water is less likely to do that.

Clark placed a photo of the empty bathtub on the screen and asked if that is the tub he saw. It showed the faucet, back wall and some shelving. Burke didn't see this photo but Clark then placed another photo up which Burke had seen.  Burke wasn't there when the tub was removed from the house, but he was there for the decision. He was not aware of any DNA testing of the tub before it was removed.  

Ryan had told him that night that Sarah fell asleep a lot and he shared this with the coroner, but he didn't know about stomach issues or headaches. When he asked Ryan for permission to search the house, Ryan gave it without hesitation.   Nothing further.

Re-Direct: John Arnold

Burke said that he and Det. Braley were present during the autopsy but did not participate in any way.

Arnold asked if, in other cases, he has seen the absence of nail marks on the accused or broken nails on the victim? Yes, sometimes they are there, and other times not, he replied. It depends on if it's a surprise attack, frontal assault or attack from behind. He also agreed that victims don't always grab their attacker's hands. Burke repeated that her nails were not overly long, nicely done finger nails.

Nothing further.

Re-Cross: Jay Clark

Clark said he had one more issue about Burke and Braley being present at the autopsy. He asked if Dr. Uptegrove was pointing out things as he was doing the autopsy and Burke replied yes. Burke said he didn't participate in the autopsy, but he did see Braley and Dr. Uptegrove talking about it.

Nothing further.